Koller Blames Pandora Battery Hack for Lack of Removable Battery On PSPgo

[x3sphere]

In case you hadn't noticed from product photos and the like, the PSPgo lacks a user removable battery. Meaning, it can't be replaced unless the unit is sent back to Sony, or you are a daring soul that doesn't mind voiding the warranty.

The long and short of it is that this design decision was made solely in prevention of piracy. While Sony seemingly did a sound enough job of blocking the infamous Pandora battery hack on PSP-3000 units, it wanted to take things a step further with the PSPgo. SCEA marketing man John Koller explains:

You won't be able to rip your games and play them on the system, the firmware precludes that, Koller explained. There's no external battery, so there's a number of protections put into place on the system.

Considering the situation at hand, we can understand the motivation behind this decision, but all things considered, this is stepping into the territory of punishing legit end-users for the nefarious actions of pirates.

Why You Can't Remove the Battery From the PSP Go [PSInsider]

[Alex]

im still debating whethere to buy one of these or not.
i've got a collection going, i got a 1k, a 2k and now i need a 3k and a go lol

[x3sphere]

I'm not interested in it. Honestly it seems Sony only released it to please the people that have been clamoring for internal storage. I bet in two years, maybe less, we will see a completely revised PSP.

[Darkchild]

and psp go CFW

[jx233]

The Jigkick [0xFFFFFFFF] battery did not work on the PSP-3000 whether soft modded or hard-modded b/c s0nY patched the exploit already.

But, I find it strange that they are going to extreme methods of preventing any tampering with the battery. Personally, now that custom made ipl.bin fails to boot from MemoryStick, and battery exploit patched on TA-088 v3 and PSP 03g, why go even more to stop the exploit if it was fully patched?. :<

[Hellcat]

IMO this means that there's still an exploit left - and Sony knows about it already but can't/didn't fix it (in time).

So, by removing the removable battery they try to make it less likely for the exploit to be exploited - as pirats would care about warrenty and not be willing to open up the thing....

[Alex]

i agree with hellcat, we're prolly looking into it to deep and the exploit is right there infront of us. lol

[B2K24]

Sony could also be pissed because so many "fake" batteries are being sold that they don't even profit from.

[cory1492]

As long as they kept whatever process to build them in line with previous revisions, I'd bet there is still a way into their service mode without opening the unit up to access the battery.

Of course, as stated previously, no one ever mentioned to the 'boss' who runs his yap nor half the folks who have made or used a pandora battery that the magic isn't really in the battery, it's in service depos getting $75+ to do a 5 min job correcting something that a customer should be able to correct without hacks anyway.

[angelsniper45]

I agree with alex_e. Its probablystaring us right in the face
as with the exploit though, if we are able to load our CFW into the psp3k, (chickHEN) we probably could find an exploit without even touching the hardware in the go! That seems more logical approach